2. Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee have different names in the Japanese version of the game that reference Japanese sporting figures.

Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee are thought to have been named for Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee in the American version of the game. In the Japanese version, their names are Ebiwalar and Sawamular, which are thought to refer to the Japanese kickboxer Tadashi Sawamura and Japanese boxing champion Hiroyuki Ebihara.

3. The Pokédex entries for Drifloon state that the Pokémon tricks children into thinking it’s a balloon and carries them away.

16. There’s a theory that right before the games, the world of Pokémon was embroiled in a massive war.

In the first-generation Pokémon games, your character doesn’t have a father, and your mother trusts you as the man of the house. Young people are in positions of power everywhere, and you don’t see many adult men that are not in the mafia or military. Even Lt. Surge says at one point, “Hey, kid! What do you think you’re doing here? You won’t live long in combat! That’s for sure! I tell you kid, electric Pokémon saved me during the war! They zapped my enemies into paralysis! The same as I’ll do to you!”

17. Wobbuffet’s various Pokédex entries seem to imply that what appears to be its body is actually a decoy, and that the small black tail with two eyes is its actual body.

Some of Wobbuffet’s Pokédex entries:
“To keep its pitch-black tail hidden, it lives quietly in the darkness. It is never first to attack.”
“Usually docile, a Wobbuffet strikes back ferociously if its black tail is attacked. It makes its lair in caves where it waits for nightfall.”
“It desperately tries to keep its black tail hidden. It is said to be proof the tail hides a secret.”

18. Likewise, there’s a theory that the faces on Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanilluxe are decoys, and the ice crystals seen near their false faces are their actual facial features.

19. It’s thought that psychic-type Pokémon are weak to bug-type, ghost-type, and dark-type Pokémon because they are common fears.

20. Some Pokémon go through major evolutions after being traded. It’s thought that these evolutions could be caused by fear of abandonment, and that the Pokémon is trying to quickly improve so that their trainers will love them again.

21. The location Lavender Town is known to cause a sense of uneasiness in some players.

There are a number of strange phenomena associated with Lavender Town in the original Pokémon games. It’s thought that the music that players hear while in the town contains isochronic tones, which could be the cause of uneasiness that has now come to be called “Lavender Town Syndrome.”

22. The “diapered Pokémon” Vullaby is labeled as a dark-type Pokémon in the Pokédex. This may be due to that fact that it appears to be wearing a human skull.

23. It doesn’t make sense that Pokémon would shout their own names in human language. Instead, it’s thought that human language in the Pokémon universe evolved from Pokémon battle cries.

The theory says that humans living alongside Pokémon like Charmander heard the creature making a call that sounded like “charmander,” and applied the sounds to the physical features of the Pokémon. So, in this instance, the word “char” came to represent something blackened by fire, and “-mander” became a suffix that describes reptilian animals.